I was born in 1948, so the 1950s are my first taste of life. I can remember a long way back and how things have changed between then and now. Hard to believe but my first memories are of the outhouse. I know many people have never used one and it isn't my most favorite memory. I remember in the winter time I was afraid my butt would freeze fast to the seat and I would be stuck there for hours. In the summer I was afraid a spider would crawl up my butt. Alright it is funny now but not to a young boy around five years old. Yes,
that was then and now the luxury of the flush toilet. People of today don't realize how good they have it.
In the 1950s our home phone was on a party line with two other families. Again I know many young people have no idea what a party line was. One family might have short rings, another long rings, and another a combination of short and long rings. No one in the 1950s ever imagined that there would be phones that people could carry around in their pocket. The cell phones are an amazing invention, but it seems like people
has lost common courtesy since they were invented. I have seen people using them at the teller window in banks and not even listening to the teller. I have seen people using them in checkout lines at the supermarket like their life is the only one that matters. It seems like common courtesy has flown out the window since the invention.
In the 1950s all shows on TV were in black and white. We saw no color TV until the early 1960s. The TVs were built to look like a piece of furniture with beautiful cabinets. Not so in today's world. We had an antenna on the roof of our home to watch TV. There was no cable TV or satellite dishes. Funny now today I have ditched cable TV and went back to an antenna to save almost a thousand dollars a year. I also still look at the reruns of many old shows in black and white. I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, The Rifleman, to name a few are still watched by me. Of course I now look at many shows in color, but the black and whites are classics that will remain forever in my heart.
I used to lay down on the grass in our yard and stare into space. I would look at the moon and wonder what it was like there. In the 1950s it seemed so distant. I thought no one will ever walk on the moon. In 1969 the first astronauts landed on the moon. I was in the Air Force in Florida at the time and was amazed that only a little over a decade earlier I thought it would never happen. Now spacecraft are flying to other planets and taking photos that in the 1950s we never thought possible. I have always been interested in space and like many I am sure that we are not the only form of life in the universe. The vastness of the universe is mind boggling.
We had an old typewriter at home and I later learned to type in school in the 1960s. The computer wasn't even thought of at the time. To make a copy on a typewriter we used carbon paper. It was so difficult to make corrections on a typewriter. Now today we have the personal computers that we can type and make any correction in a matter of seconds. We can print out copies of what we are typing immediately.
These changes over the years are only a few of what I remember and have seen. Who knows what the next fifty years will bring. I see all the advancement in technology now, but I will always remember riding my bicycle on the roads in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. We never wore a helmet and we survived. Sure I got the usual cuts and scrapes. I remember around 1961 when I was getting ready to go to a Little League game. I went out to put by bat and glove in the car. When I slammed the car door shut my index finger on my right hand was in the way. It cut the tip of my finger about half off. No need to go to the doctor then just push it back together and tape it up. Yes, it healed, but to this day I have a scar on the finger that stands out like crazy when I get finger printed. Now it seems we go to the doctor for any little sniffle.By the way our family doctor in the 1950s made house calls. No chance you will get one to do that now.
This has been just a glimpse through sixty years of my life. Sixty years from now people will be looking back at how things have changed for them. People may think I am crazy, but I often wish many of the things today was still like it was in the 1950s. I have so many memories you can't imagine, many good, many bad. However, I have always felt that the bad times make the good times seem a lot better.
Copyright Larry W. Fish 2015
amazon.com/author/larry_w_fish
Friday, July 31, 2015
Sunday, July 19, 2015
LIFE
As we journey through our lives we see so many changes. I grew up as a little boy in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. I will say that I didn't grow up in the most loving family. My mom and dad were fighting almost constantly. I won't say that we were poor, but we didn't have much. I remember going to the outhouse before we got indoor plumbing when I was around five years old. My brother and I spent much time outside because it was more peaceful. Alcohol abuse was bad in my family especially on my father's side. However my dad had a tough life, he got polio when he was nineteen years old. He was sent to the Institute for the Crippled and Disabled in New York City where he learned the craft of jewelry making. He became famous in the Poconos as a silversmith.
I did alright in school, but I didn't apply myself as much as I could have. I was interested in certain subjects.
Math was my favorite subject because I was very good at it. I guess that was good because I ended up working in manufacturing for 30 years. I could change every fraction of 64ths in my head to a decimal.. I didn't need to figure it out. Every day math was needed in manufacturing.
It was a couple of years after graduating high school that the Vietnam War was going strong. Many of my friends were being drafted and I knew it was time for me to enlist. I joined the U.S. Air Force a move that
I never regretted. I thought then and I still think that every able bodied male should serve their country. I feel that ending the draft was a big mistake. The military teaches young people discipline and that is something lacking in our youth of today. I wonder if I was a good parent. I like to think so. My children were involved in scouts, the school band, my son on the swim team, my daughter as a majorette and drum major in the marching band the senior year. My son is a 20 year retired Marine and my daughter is an artist/graphic designer. I am so proud of them.
I spent my military time in Texas, Florida, and the Philippines. Funny four years in the Air Force and I was only in Vietnam for four hours. It was in the Airmen's Club on Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines that I met Lina. She became my wife and this coming December we will celebrate our 45th anniversary. We have
two children, five grand kids,and one great granddaughter.
In my work life I was an engraver and engraved gold drums about a half inch in diameter and an inch and a half long that went into guidance systems for missiles, after the military I worked for Ronson Corporation and put flint tubes in cigarette lighters, then for General Electric working in a carbon products plant, I became a machinist working in several factories through the years working on computer cabinets, parts for the space shuttle, parts for missile launchers on nuclear submarines, parts for fire detection systems, and numerous other parts. As the jobs were increasingly being shipped overseas and manufacturing was hurt, those jobs were hard to find. I worked my last two jobs as a maintenance supervisor in a library and as a maintenance coordinator in a large church.
Finally retirement came and I wanted to do something to be remembered by. I started to write short stories and was finally published in Our USA Magazine. Now two published novels have followed and I look back on life and realize that life is what you make of it.
Would I have done things different in life if I had the chance to do it over. Some things yes and many things no. I have never smoked, my dad died of lung cancer from smoking at age 59. I don't drink alcohol, I did for some time, but haven't had a drink in 20 years. To many families fall apart from alcohol abuse. I was not going to let that happen to my family. Do I have any bad habits. Yes, I do swear to much, but I am working on that, hahaha.
One thing I will say is that I love life and enjoy getting up every day. I enjoy hearing the birds singing early in the morning, I enjoy walking and playing with my dog,Cookie, I enjoy phone calls and emails from my children and grand kids. I enjoy knowing that Lina has put up with my for almost 45 years. I enjoy nature with a passion. If I can take a walk in the forest that costs me nothing it is more pleasure for me than if I went of an expensive vacation. It is the little things in life that matter.Hugging my wife, petting my dog, watching it rain, chatting with a friend. Everyone should remember the little joys in life cost us nothing.
God bless my family and friends, I love you all.
Copyright Larry W. Fish 2015
amazon.com/author/larry_w_fish
I did alright in school, but I didn't apply myself as much as I could have. I was interested in certain subjects.
Math was my favorite subject because I was very good at it. I guess that was good because I ended up working in manufacturing for 30 years. I could change every fraction of 64ths in my head to a decimal.. I didn't need to figure it out. Every day math was needed in manufacturing.
It was a couple of years after graduating high school that the Vietnam War was going strong. Many of my friends were being drafted and I knew it was time for me to enlist. I joined the U.S. Air Force a move that
I never regretted. I thought then and I still think that every able bodied male should serve their country. I feel that ending the draft was a big mistake. The military teaches young people discipline and that is something lacking in our youth of today. I wonder if I was a good parent. I like to think so. My children were involved in scouts, the school band, my son on the swim team, my daughter as a majorette and drum major in the marching band the senior year. My son is a 20 year retired Marine and my daughter is an artist/graphic designer. I am so proud of them.
I spent my military time in Texas, Florida, and the Philippines. Funny four years in the Air Force and I was only in Vietnam for four hours. It was in the Airmen's Club on Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines that I met Lina. She became my wife and this coming December we will celebrate our 45th anniversary. We have
two children, five grand kids,and one great granddaughter.
In my work life I was an engraver and engraved gold drums about a half inch in diameter and an inch and a half long that went into guidance systems for missiles, after the military I worked for Ronson Corporation and put flint tubes in cigarette lighters, then for General Electric working in a carbon products plant, I became a machinist working in several factories through the years working on computer cabinets, parts for the space shuttle, parts for missile launchers on nuclear submarines, parts for fire detection systems, and numerous other parts. As the jobs were increasingly being shipped overseas and manufacturing was hurt, those jobs were hard to find. I worked my last two jobs as a maintenance supervisor in a library and as a maintenance coordinator in a large church.
Finally retirement came and I wanted to do something to be remembered by. I started to write short stories and was finally published in Our USA Magazine. Now two published novels have followed and I look back on life and realize that life is what you make of it.
Would I have done things different in life if I had the chance to do it over. Some things yes and many things no. I have never smoked, my dad died of lung cancer from smoking at age 59. I don't drink alcohol, I did for some time, but haven't had a drink in 20 years. To many families fall apart from alcohol abuse. I was not going to let that happen to my family. Do I have any bad habits. Yes, I do swear to much, but I am working on that, hahaha.
One thing I will say is that I love life and enjoy getting up every day. I enjoy hearing the birds singing early in the morning, I enjoy walking and playing with my dog,Cookie, I enjoy phone calls and emails from my children and grand kids. I enjoy knowing that Lina has put up with my for almost 45 years. I enjoy nature with a passion. If I can take a walk in the forest that costs me nothing it is more pleasure for me than if I went of an expensive vacation. It is the little things in life that matter.Hugging my wife, petting my dog, watching it rain, chatting with a friend. Everyone should remember the little joys in life cost us nothing.
God bless my family and friends, I love you all.
Copyright Larry W. Fish 2015
amazon.com/author/larry_w_fish
Saturday, July 11, 2015
VOTE
I am shocked at the voter turnout in the United States of America. We complain about a useless Congress yet few people go to the polls to vote the incompetent members of Congress out. I have done some research and found out that 58 countries in the world have a higher voter turnout than the US. This is unacceptable.
I think it should be taught in school the importance of voting. We live in a country where over 90% of the elections are determined by how much money the candidate spends. Our elections should not be bought by the highest bidder. We need to get more and more younger voters to vote. It is my feeling that if you don't vote then don't complain.
In the 2008 presidential election only 57.5% of voting age people voted. That was the highest percentage in many years but it is still to low. It needs to be made easier for people to vote, not harder like much state legislation has done in the past few years.
I think people should be able to register and vote online. This is the 21st century, why are we still doing things like we did in the old days. I also feel the electoral college should be done away with. Why in a world of high technology can a candidate win the popular vote and still loose the presidential election? This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Big money needs to get out of politics. Billionaires should not be allowed to spend millions of dollars on the candidates that they want elected. I think every candidate should be limited to the same amount of public money to spend on the race and no more. Some other countries do this.
I don't care if you are a democrat, a republican, or independent, people need to vote. Several years ago I changed from a registered democrat to unaffiliated. I vote for people of opposite parties and I will continue to do so. The important thing is to vote, vote, vote and make up your own choice. Don't make your decision on false advertising paid for by the super rich of the US.
Copyright Larry W. Fish 2015
amazon.com/author/larry_w_fish
I think it should be taught in school the importance of voting. We live in a country where over 90% of the elections are determined by how much money the candidate spends. Our elections should not be bought by the highest bidder. We need to get more and more younger voters to vote. It is my feeling that if you don't vote then don't complain.
In the 2008 presidential election only 57.5% of voting age people voted. That was the highest percentage in many years but it is still to low. It needs to be made easier for people to vote, not harder like much state legislation has done in the past few years.
I think people should be able to register and vote online. This is the 21st century, why are we still doing things like we did in the old days. I also feel the electoral college should be done away with. Why in a world of high technology can a candidate win the popular vote and still loose the presidential election? This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Big money needs to get out of politics. Billionaires should not be allowed to spend millions of dollars on the candidates that they want elected. I think every candidate should be limited to the same amount of public money to spend on the race and no more. Some other countries do this.
I don't care if you are a democrat, a republican, or independent, people need to vote. Several years ago I changed from a registered democrat to unaffiliated. I vote for people of opposite parties and I will continue to do so. The important thing is to vote, vote, vote and make up your own choice. Don't make your decision on false advertising paid for by the super rich of the US.
Copyright Larry W. Fish 2015
amazon.com/author/larry_w_fish
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